I don't think this topic get enough attention, this is about the legality of suicide, assisted suicide and the ethics surrounding it. The laws making suicide illegal i think are preposterous, how can you be so inclinded to tell someone who isn't 'intrested' in the game of life or in some sort of trauma or suffering to stay here. The law itself seems to mostly target people who are dying in pain and to weak to do the job, if you are capable of taking your own life, then there is nothing they can really do if you execute it right. And i hear people talk about, you know, how there parents would be devastated and it is selfish for him to kill himself, but maybe it is the parents who are selfish, if they understood what there son or elder or whatever the situation was experiencing they would understand. (and if it was legal maybe there son could actually open up to his parents without being sent to a mental hospital). Also i think just in general suicide should be a personal choice and shouldn't be so badly judged by society labeling people as quitters, weak..etc

Sorry if this thread is not nicely constructed, delete it mods if you think it is not worthy of the debate section.

If you fail at suicide you clearly don't want to die or you're just not physically capable of suicide(crippled etc.), because honestly, it's not that hard(Other than mentally, in which it might be challenging).

On one hand I can see how it could be considered selfish to take your own life and leave everyone behind with feelings of mourning, regret, guilt, emptiness, etc. etc. and whatever, and I used to agree that it's a horrible thing to do to people

People say suicide is selfish. I think it's selfish to ask people to continue living painful and miserable lives, just so you possibly won't feel sad for a week or two. Suicide may be a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but it's also a permanent solution to a ~23 year-old problem that grows more intense and overwhelming every day.

Some people are just dealt bad hands in this life. I know many people have it worse than I do, and maybe I'm just not a strong person, but I really did try to deal with this. I've tried to deal with this every day for the last 23 years and I just can't fucking take it anymore.

"We should allow child labor overseas ...the sweatshop is what is saving the 9 year old worker"

April 2007
6,864 Posts

If you accept that a person owns their own body, then that person must also have a right to end their life. Any type of force stopping a person from taking their life would be immoral. In the case of assisted suicide, it is perfectly acceptable given that the person allows it as there would be no force. The best way for it to work in society is through contract with a third party present. I say this because because it would be difficult to distinguish murder from assisted suicide in many cases. Some people wouldn't see this issue because most assisted suicide happens with people on their death beds, but you have to take the full issue into scope.

Also, this issue is quite different than euthanasia, or at least the non voluntary forms. The only form euthanasia this issue comes into contact with is assisted suicide where the patient gives consent to the physician to be put down.

If you fail at suicide you clearly don't want to die or you're just not physically capable of suicide(crippled etc.), because honestly, it's not that hard(Other than mentally, in which it might be challenging).

The last part in the brackets proved the first part wrong.
You're like a one-man portable debate.

But anyway, my beliefs here (as most of you probably know from the other thread) align exactly with Pepin's. You may think that suicide is selfish and immoral but refusing someone the right to make decisions for their own body is more immoral.

In the words of Doug Stanhope, life is like a movie. If you've sat through half of it, and it's sucked every minute so far, it's not very likely it's going to pick up and be great at the end.

Suicide itself can't really be illegal, you can't stop people from doing it. And prosecuting the nearly dead or suicidally depressed over their very own attempts seem immoral at best. People who aren't experienced with suicide trying to make decisions over other people doesn't really work. People look so negatively on it, there's little reason to.

I dunno, if you can put suicide in the moral category then you can put assisted suicide in too. It really depends on are you able to make decisions about yourself that affect it in such a way, does your ownership over yourself extend to ending your own life?

I'm still undecided though. I can see a big problem with the legality of it if people can do it on an uninformed basis but personally I can understand someone wanting to die. I think it's highly ill-advised but I wouldn't put it in a completely immoral category, it has it's places.

It's stupid to think suicide is selfish or cowardly. You've got a person who's obviously feeling very bad. And the solution would be to shower that person with guilt? That just solves everything? That's bullshit. It's much more selfish to force someone to live in misery just so you don't have to "get sad".

I always get upset when people say "Suicide is selfish" rather than realizing the state the person must've been in or what they must've been going through to have committed suicide in the first place. It just seems disrespectful.

It's stupid to think suicide is selfish or cowardly. You've got a person who's obviously feeling very bad. And the solution would be to shower that person with guilt? That just solves everything? That's bullshit. It's much more selfish to force someone to live in misery just so you don't have to "get sad".

For the most part, I think suicide is an incredibly selfish thing to do. I understand that people have different problems, but it causes such pain to family and friends. A boy in my old school hung himself in his garage and his little brother found him. It just strikes me as purely selfish.

(Obviously some people are not in the right state of mind to be held accountable for it, however).

For the most part, I think suicide is an incredibly selfish thing to do. I understand that people have different problems, but it causes such pain to family and friends. A boy in my old school hung himself in his garage and his little brother found him. It just strikes me as purely selfish.

(Obviously some people are not in the right state of mind to be held accountable for it, however).

That's the worst argument against suicide. It's not selfish, it's selfish of you and everyone around that person to tie them down to a world that they clearly don't want to be in because you can't handle being sad for a few weeks or days.

What about people who decide to take someone with them as they commit suicide?
That is, they kill someone, attempt to commit suicide and fail and are caught?
With the law as it is at the moment, they would be convicted for murder, but that doesn't seem right to me. They were trying to kill theirself, but instead are put into prison for the rest of their life. And what good would that do them?

What about people who decide to take someone with them as they commit suicide?
That is, they kill someone, attempt to commit suicide and fail and are caught?
With the law as it is at the moment, they would be convicted for murder, but that doesn't seem right to me. They were trying to kill theirself, but instead are put into prison for the rest of their life. And what good would that do them?

You can't charge a dead man and the issues of suicide don't not coincide with the issues of murder. All you are really doing is pointing out is that the law it pointless when someone murders someone and then commits suicide because there is no way to charge the person. In the same way, isn't a law against suicide pointless when someone commits suicide?

You can't charge a dead man and the issues of suicide don't not coincide with the issues of murder. All you are really doing is pointing out is that the law it pointless when someone murders someone and then commits suicide because there is no way to charge the person. In the same way, isn't a law against suicide pointless when someone commits suicide?

No, what if someone kills someone and tries, and fails, to kill theirself straight afterwards?

A classmate of mine committed suicide last friday, his little sister found him dead in his room. Apparently he was depressed for a while but never showed it at school.
I don't agree on doing it because of depression, but if you are a potato or in immense pain it should be legal.

I don't understand why you would kill yourself. You're going to die in the end anyways.
If you play a game of pinball and happen to do bad in the start, you don't get your coin back if you walk away. So might as well play it out and see how it goes.

I don't understand why you would kill yourself. You're going to die in the end anyways.
If you play a game of pinball and happen to do bad in the start, you don't get your coin back if you walk away. So might as well play it out and see how it goes.

A classmate of mine committed suicide last friday, his little sister found him dead in his room. Apparently he was depressed for a while but never showed it at school.
I don't agree on doing it because of depression, but if you are a potato or in immense pain it should be legal.

The problem with the potato argument is that it's difficult to make certain that THEY are the ones choosing to die.

Your body is your own, you should have the final say in any debate about what should be done with it, if you decide you want to kill it that's your decision. You might disagree with someone's choice to end themselves or not but it's their choice, not yours.

I don't really see how you can make suicide "illegal" apart from assisted suicide, but that's really a whole other case to me. Assisted suicide is fine if they are medically suffering a pain that cannot be treated, etc. (If you want more on this, see the assisted suicide thread)

As for plain suicide, that's really debatable. People DO have the right to do as they wish to their body and I respect that. Whether it be hurting it or healing it, it's their choice really. You see that a lot nowadays, people trying to tell others what to do and what not to do with their body.

Although with suicide you have a completely irreversible effect that may or may not harm/sadden the people around them. Plus suicide is a common thing among teens, at that age they don't think clearly (as well as normally suicidal people most of the time) and are very prone to making a stupid mistake that could probably be gotten over (not saying depression is easy to suck up and deal with, it's just their could be hope past it)

Allowing or accepting suicide could also be fatal. Suppose a person is ready to kill themselves, they may decide to do something drastic as payback or to do one last crazy thing. And by that I mean any crime pretty much. Stealing a car, killing a hated bully or coworker, or other random acts like those. Now, that doesn't apply to every suicidal person, chances are they are too depressed to do something like that but it's still a possibility.

No, what if someone kills someone and tries, and fails, to kill theirself straight afterwards?

So the person is still alive? Well, if it was a murder, then the person should be charged with murder. If the person was just carrying out an assisted suicide and just trying to commit suicide after, then there should be no legal charges. Again, this could get at bit complicated which is why contracts with a third party present would make the most sense with assisted suicide, so that it can be known that there was consent given.

It's stupid to think suicide is selfish or cowardly. You've got a person who's obviously feeling very bad. And the solution would be to shower that person with guilt? That just solves everything? That's bullshit. It's much more selfish to force someone to live in misery just so you don't have to "get sad".